Nicholas Music Center was nearly full for the Rutgers Wind Ensemble Friday evening concert. Quite a number of the attendees were non-music students who had to listen to a concert and write a report (review) of it for CNJ-reviewer Joseph Orchard's General Music class. Chats with a few of them were instructive.
The impressive unanimity and sheer technique required to play Shotstakovich's Festive Overture was noted by the Gen. Mus. students. What was noticed only by musicians was William Berz's conducting style. He often ignores keeping the beat and instead uses gestures that are all about increasing the musicality of phrasing and accenting The piece most mentioned as impressive to the Gen. Mus. students was Alan Hovhaness's Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places. It is a two movement programmatic work which speaks with the composer's usual directness. When the music of "fury and devastation" (to use the composer's own words) struck, technical description did not matter. The intent was visceral and obvious, and in that sense not far from the ethos of heavy-metal rock.
Musicians in the audience, of course, identified frightening trombone glissandi in the midst of other aleatoric mayhem. "Fury and devastation" indeed.
And just to show how our western culture (and we suspect Mr. Orchard's class) impacts even those who do not anything about early music, the second movement was described as "old sounding". And sure enough, it was fill with references to medieval organum and modes, far more exotic than those used by the early church. With or without technical knowledge the essential nobility of expression was unmistakable.
The work calls for a trumpet soloist. Bryan K. Appleby-Wineberg, who seems to be on a Hovhaness jag (see Brass concert review) again showed off his cultured tone and ability to make long lines work.
The big dividing line between the Gen. Mus. folks and the already musically educated was Morton Gould's Symphony for Band in two movements. Even though the composer does not use the standard symphony structure, he uses the whole panoply of symphonic devices: motivic development, modulation, and worked out transitions. Even within the second "Marches" movement, there is considerable sophistication in the construction. While the musically educated had a good handle on how to listen to conductor Joe H. Brashier's lucid and well defined reading, those not well versed in listening to motives found the piece boring.
William Schuman's evocation of the George Washington Bridge, which depends on the clear distinction of sound masses for its effect, was given a riveting performance. Architectural and jazzy, catching the spirit of the "new" New York which saw the construction of not only the bridge, but the Empire State Building and the Lincoln Tunnel, the period was too far distant for understanding by the kids both on and off stage. But a careful listen could put them in touch with that, so spirited was Berz's reading. The evening's finale was the two Armenian Dances by Aram Khachaturian. Though exotic in melodic content, they provided a vigorous conclusion to the concert which was quite understandable by the whole audience.
